Reese's Amazeballs Will Give You Life on a Soul-Sucking Day

If you've scrolled Pinterest or your Facebook newsfeed recently, there's a good chance you've come across 'energy balls.' It's no wonder the healthy-ish snack has been snowballing in popularity-most recipes call for very few ingredients, they're no-bake, and they look like balls of cookie dough, yet they're supposed to be good for you.

For the most part, they are. Monica Amsterdam, the director of nutrition at the Medical and Wellness Center of New Jersey, says an ideal energizing snack should clock in around 170 to 200 calories, with at least 7 grams of protein and a low-glycemic load (meaning they're not full of simple carbs that will make your blood sugar spike and crash). Energy balls can easily fit the bill, depending on what you add to them-and provided you don't eat the entire batch in one sitting.

Photo credit: Jonathan Boulton

The snack-which hit an all-time high in search traffic this past January, but could climb even higher this May, according to Google Trends data-typically consists of a few key ingredients that you can easily customize to suit your tastes: nut butter, oats, flax seeds (or chia seeds), an all-natural sweetener (like honey, agave syrup or, in our case, banana), and some mix-in treat, be it dried fruit, or, more commonly, chocolate chips.

Admittedly, we went decadent, adding one of the best-selling chocolates in the country-Reese's peanut butter cups-though you could easily omit that ingredient, or swap it out for a less-caloric treat, like a tablespoon of dark chocolate chips or, as Amsterdam suggests, cacao nibs. Basically, our belief is that if you're craving a peanut butter cup, you should be able to enjoy one, even if you're avoiding sweets, so we stretched those two peanut butter cups to last for eight snack breaks, instead of only one. (Hence why we called these "Amazeballs." We're not pretending they're the healthiest snack on the planet; but they're healthy-ish, and that's good enough for us.)

Photo credit: Jonathan Boulton

Two 1-inch-round Reese's Amazeballs, as we made them, clock in at about 200 calories, with 7 grams of protein. The protein and fiber-found in the ground flax seed and oats in particular-will help you feel fuller longer, and the banana adds a dose of potassium, which can help prevent post-workout cramps.